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The Right Choice for TDMA Carriers - GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS
Rod Nelson
Chief Technology Officer
AT&T Wireless
It's always a good thing to look back on the decisions you made to see if the world you envisioned has actually come to pass. It is even more intriguing to do this when you view the future with basic assumptions rooted in technology.
When AT&T Wireless began looking to deploy a new network, we evaluated several technologies and paths to provide customers with advanced 3G services. TDMA/EDGE, CDMA2000 and GSM/GPRS were all assessed.
Now, a year and a half into our program, we believe the decision to migrate to GSM and GPRS/EDGE/UMTS was THE best solution and decision for our company, our customers, and our shareholders.
GSM and GPRS are performing as we expected. Financially, our deployment is on track with our projections. And with GPRS, AT&T Wireless was able to offer customers features that used higher speed data services in many of our markets sooner than other wireless technologies.
From a customer perspective, GSM/GPRS provides excellent voice quality and easy to use data services across a broad range of devices. GSM is the global standard and is supported by almost every equipment vendor. This means that over time our customers will have the broadest range of devices-everything from mainstream handsets to specialty data devices for industrial applications to more applications from content providers.
AT&T Wireless estimated it would cost about $15 per pop to deploy a GSM/GPRS network to some 200 million people in 18 months. It was October 2000 when we announced those plans and the first markets launched in July 2001. We're happy to say that our cost estimates and timing for national deployment by the end of 2002 are both on target.
Additionally, we estimate the cost to upgrade GPRS to EDGE in the vicinity of $1-2 per pop. Finally our network is prepared for the addition of UMTS with reuse of much or our infrastructure and application platforms.
Technically, GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS now gives us the flexibility to enhance and increase capacity for both voice and data. According to a recent study by Rysavy Research:
- GSM has almost double the capacity of TDMA - and with AMR codec software deployed, will quadruple TDMA capacity, making GSM voice capacity equal to or better than CDMA2000
- Single Antenna Interference Cancellation, in development, will provide an additional 60-100 percent increase in voice capacity.
- EDGE software triples the data speeds of GPRS using the same spectrum and radio frequency.
- UMTS provides additional capacity and quality-of-service mechanisms, and flexibility in managing resources between voice and data services. And more than triples the data speed of EDGE.
All major handset vendors have made available some of the most exciting devices that have been seen in the marketplace in a long time. Across the GSM/GPRS industry, operators today can choose from a wide array of data enabled devices. Today you can challenge yourself to choose among devices with color screens, joystick maneuverability, size, camera accessories, and personalization with your own pictures and ringtones. Or maybe a wirelessly connected PDA or a PC card are the right devices for you. These devices are available for GSM/GPRS networks from multiple vendors. Interestingly, most new wireless devices are introduced to work on the GPRS network.
Finally, content providers have a global platform to develop new applications and data services for devices running on GPRS/EDGE/UMTS. The scale and scope of these technologies will offer content providers a "world market" that will take their applications global instead of designing services for a limited audience. This will be a huge incentive for developers to provide more applications.
Carriers selecting the GSM/GPRS/EDGE/UMTS migration path to 3G will surely receive all the financial, technological and customer benefits one might expect in using a global standard.
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